Sherlock Holmes

Felix Aylmer.)
Otto Lagoni – Danish star of the oddly titled 1910 Nordisk
picture Sherlock Holmes in The Claws of the Confidence Men or The
Stolen Wallet  (UK: The Confidence Trick).
Dinsdale Landen – Having played Watson opposite Robert
Powell, Landen took the main role in the BBC Radio 4 adap-
tation of Sherlock’s Last Case on 6 May 1989 (see Frank
Langella).
Frank Langella – American actor who appeared in an HBO
TV movie version of the Sherlock Holmes 1974 stage revival.
Taped at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Massachusetts, it
was first shown in America on 15 November 1981. In 1987 he
starred in Charles Marowitz’s revised version of Sherlock’s Last
Case at the Eisenhower Theater, Washington DC (1 July to 1
August) and at the Nederlander Theatre, New York (20 August
to 6 December). (See Dinsdale Landen.)
Viggo Larsen – Short, stocky Danish actor who directed,
wrote and starred in a series of Holmes films made by the
Nordisk Films Kompagni of Copenhagen at the beginning of
the twentieth century. Sherlock Holmes Risks His Life (UK:
Sherlock Holmes) kicked off the series in 1908. This was swiftly
followed the same year by Sherlock Holmes II (UK: Raffles Escapes
from Prison) and Sherlock Holmes III (UK: Sherlock Holmes in the
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Gas Cellar or The Theft of the State Document).The next year came
The Singer’s Diamonds (UK: The Theft of the Diamonds), Cab
No.519 and The Grey Lady. This latter production followed the
plot of The Hound of the Baskervilles quite closely, although it
replaced the Hound with the Grey Lady of the title.
A series of five short films was released in 1910 under the
banner title Arsène Lupin Against Sherlock Holmes, all directed by
and starring Larsen, with Paul Otto as Lupin. (Lupin’s creator
Maurice Leblanc had to publish his book version as the thinly-
disguised  Arsène Lupin Against Herlock Sholmes, but the film-
makers got away with the detective’s real name.) Production
was shared between Vitascope GmbH in Germany and Nordisk
Films in Denmark. Two further films followed in 1912, both
made by Vitascope: The End of Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes
Against Professor Moriarty (aka The Heir of Bloomrod). Messter-
Film’s Rotterdam-Amsterdam in 1918 proved to be his swansong.